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God of Cooking – Chapter 118: Hunger trip (3)

Jo Minjoon looked at the wooden sticks in front of him while looking frustrated. Could they have inquired about Korean entertainment shows? He couldn’t know. In the first place he didn’t even know how American entertainment shows proceeded. Emily asked with sharp eyes.

“Wait. What’s the highest and lowest value?”
“The highest is 300 reals, and the lowest is 50 reals. Also, you won’t have any problems on solving your meals. Only, it will be difficult to get expensive and abundant food.”(PR Note: To give an idea, a Big Mac costs around R$15.32, according to latest survey here.)

Even so, it was fortunate that the highest was a big amount. Jo Minjoon didn’t hesitate and pulled a stick and let out a sigh. Martin asked with a face full of expectation.

“How much is it?”
“I’m damned.”

Jo Minjoon showed his stick. Martin’s face, which was smiling merrily, immediately turned dark the moment he saw the stick. He twisted his mouth as if the sigh Jo Minjoon had let out was fake.

“It’s 300 reals.”
“…..Let’s proceed. Emily. Pick one!”
“Wait.”

Emily pointed the stick Martin had in his hand.

“Why don’t you put it back?”
“It’s already been picked.”
“Then it means that I have to pick something below 300 reals?”
“Yes.”
“Martin! Even if it’s entertainment, this is too much. The moment people feel the worse is when they can’t eat what they want…. Are you planning on making me feel bad?”

Emily said with a sulky voice. Martin showed a soft smile and admonished her as if he would to a kid.

“Emily. As I told you before, 50 dollars is still big money. It’s almost 30 dollars. If it’s ordinary food, you will have enough even after two meals. Also, it’s really cheap in Brazil.”
“Even so, pulling straws was too much. I don’t even expect 300 reals. 100 reals…… No, 200 reals. Just give me 200 reals.”
“Emily. You know that when you are hungry the food is the most delicious.”
“…….I understand. I will pull one.”

Emily extended her hand to the wooden sticks with a face as if she had surrendered. Her trembling hand was showing how nervous she was. Her hand that was pondering grabbed one stick. And when she pulled it, she said with a voice as if she would cry.

“I knew this would happen.”

There was a 50 written on the stick.

–

Everytime they took a step, sand got in their shoes. Emily and Minjoon were at São Paulo, at a beach you didn’t know the name of. It was July, which was still winter in Brazil. But the weather, rather than being cold, was fresh

But even so, there were quite few people sunbathing on the beach. Some were running on the sidewalk next to the sand boxes as if they were jogging, and every time the waves clashed, the kids fell down and yelled. When they looked at the blue sea, their head cooled down as if ice exploded in front of their eyes, and looking at the round parasols they felt that they got inside a movie.

But it seemed like Emily couldn’t sense that at all. Well, for someone that has thousands of dollars on her car trunk, how will she feel after she’s given only 50 reals? Her hands kept grabbing her wallet anxiously but in the end, only uneasiness remained.

“How much did he say 50 reals were?”
“About 30 dollars?” (PR Note: approximately 13USD)
“It’s just like a tip.”
“……You give a really big tip.”

He could feel that he was living on a different world than the person next to him. Emily got surprised and shook her head.

“Ah. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not the lavish type. But I use to spend a lot of food when eating. Is it because I feel better?”
“But now, you won’t even be able to do that when eating.”
“Ughh….. I had to go with a documentary rather than entertainment.”
“Even so, didn’t you eat various cheap food? You are an epicurean. You have to try this and that.”
“It’s embarrassing, but epicureans also eat only what they enjoy.”

Emily replied while laughing embarrassedly.

So like that, the place Jo Minjoon and the suffering conglomerate went was to a churrasco specialized store on the beach made with brown logs, a churrasqueira. While sitting on a white wooden chair under the parasol, Jo Minjoon looked at his surroundings with a refreshed expression. The white sand grains under the sunlight. He could plentily see this scene on the screen, but it was difficult to see it with his own eyes. Most of all, how will he feel when he had a meal on that scenery?

“I wanted to eat something on places like this once.”
“Eat plentily, although I’m not the one buying it.”

As Emily joked briefly, her face darkened after she saw at the menu. She grumbled with a low voice.

“Maybe it’s because we are on the beach, but it is expensive. To eat without stop like a buffet, 110 reals….. I can’t even dream of this. On one carving it goes from 5 to 10 reals…..At much, 5 times would be the limit.”
“Isn’t 5 times enough?”
“Minjoon, you didn’t eat in Brazil, right? As this is a tourist spot, they are really ill-natured. Most of the places serve you as thinly as paper as if they were doing industrial art.”
“Ei, even so will they slice it as thinly as paper? There’s also cameras running, so they would rather slice it well. And even if they slice it thinly…..”

He put a relaxed smile.

“I can eat 6 times more than you, so it won’t be that of a problem.”
“Hmph, now that I’m not a judge you will act like this, huh?”
“Those words are a bit weird. Even when you were a judge I wasn’t particularly aware.”
“That is indeed right. I raised a tiger. Ei, I don’t know. Here. Look at the menu.”

Jo Minjoon received the menu from Emily. Rear meat, beef tongue, chicken heart, sheep legs, and various other places were written on it. The price was simple. Churrasco, saying it in Korean words if you wanted unlimited refill you had to pay 110 reals. If you didn’t want that, you had to pay every time you received a carving. On top of that, thinking about the tip….. The price was quite burdensome. Jo Minjoon looked at Emily with worrisome eyes.

“Emily. What if we go elsewhere? We don’t have to eat churrasco today.”
“…..You are the first man that treats me like this.”
“What about me?”
“A man that tells me to go elsewhere because I don’t have money! How can this be. I never imagined that in the life of Emily Potter, this moment would come…….. Ah, please cut off that dialogue. You knew that it was a joke, right?”

Martin just laughed instead of replying. Emily grabbed her t-shirt and fluttered it. Jo Minjoon glanced at Martin and asked.

“Martin, maybe……”
“You can’t.”
“Do you even know what I was about to say?”
“You were about to ask me to let the two of you because you will be the one paying. I can’t permit that from the start.”
“It’s fine, Minjoon. I will just give up the churrasco and eat another thing. As I saw, they also sell curry and beef stroganoff.”
“…….Are you really okay?”
“What can I do? That reality is this cold.”

Emily put a smile of that of a protagonist of a tragedy, and soon started to choose on the menu. In the end what she ordered was a 20-real feijoada. It was a dish that had pieces of meat just like osso bucco inside of the black colored bean sauce. Jo Minjoon couldn’t help but get surprised when he looked at that dish. Because for a town food, the score was quite high. The cooking score was 8.

“…….Emily, is this a famous place?”
“I wonder. I don’t know as I also haven’t come here that much. You would know looking at before that I just went to where my feet guided me.”
“But the smell is really good.”
“I wonder if the flavor will also…… Mm. The flavor is also good. Oh, no. It’s not good, but it’s excellent. Well, most of the feijoada are like that. It’s a dish which you put in effort, it’s easy to give it flavor. But instead, that effort is the difficult thing. Do you know how long it takes to make a proper feijoada?”
“How long? I don’t even know what kind of dish that is.”
“Four days. It’s four days. One day on steeping the beans, another day on boiling the meat. And if you boil it again and together with onion, beans, garlic, etc. for a pair of days……Here, look.”

Emily lifted a piece of meat with her spoon. Between the round beans, the meat was placed above it just like a crown. The well cooked meat seemed tender even at first glance, and the sauce was seeped in it deeply. She thought that it would be difficult to differentiate the flavor of the sauce and the meat that it made her think that it wasn’t mixed up.

Emily soon brought that meat to her mouth. The flavor of the bean that touched her tongue clashed with the strong flavor of the pork. The meat melted down in an instant. Could you express it as having melted a while ago but it barely maintained its shape? But even so, the characteristic of the fibers meat has stimulated her tongue for a moment, a faint happiness could be seen on Emily’s face.

“Ah, I didn’t expect much because it was a churrasco store, but if it’s this much it’s really fine. I can feel that the mind of the chef is upright.”
“……Is it that delicious?”
“At least for food, I never lie. And……”

She stopped talking. Next to Jo Minjoon, a man with a big build was standing with a huge skewer and a knife. And on that skewer, there were many pieces of meat stuck in eat that seemed to be have an arc shape. Picaña. It was one of the most popular churrasco menu for brazilians and was made with a cow’s butt meat. An intonation of English accent was heard.

“Shall I slice it for you?”
“Ah, yes.”

The carver softly sliced off a piece of meat. Although for normal people it won’t seem that impressive, Jo Minjoon could see it. Slicing meat with an uniform thickness without damaging the composition of the muscles was something normal people couldn’t do.

‘……The cooking score is 7.’

To get a score of 7 just by roasting it, it meant that it was quite well-cooked. And of course, it was also well sliced.

As he sliced off again the sliced meat, a dense carbon aroma and the salt showed the salty and sweet flavor. As the blood flavor of cow meat got mixed with fire, it didn’t feel fishy at all. Rather, as he ate it with a sauce made with onions, garlic, chilli sauce, etc. he didn’t feel any rejection at all. Jo Minjoon opened his mouth.

“Look, Emily. It isn’t the thickness of paper.”
“……..I wonder. It can be because of the camera, or perhaps because it’s really a considerate store. But what if any of that is the case? In the end, it’s something I can’t eat. Even so.”

Emily placed feijoada on bread and said.

“It comforts me a bit as this is delicious.”

Jo Minjoon smiled brightly and touched the greenpan that was next to him. The meaning of the pan that was painted with green on the sides and red on the other was simply. Green was I will keep eating, and red was I will stop. But of course, he was still hungry to show the red color.

Personally, what Jo Minjoon ate the most deliciously was the chicken heart. Although the cooking score was only 6, the fresh characteristic of the heart was that it has a chewy texture and a very good feeling that kissed your lips. Next to that, the most delicious thing was, funnily, sausage. The cooking score was 7, but of course it wasn’t delicious just because of the score.

The impression Jo Minjoon had about handmade sausages being rough and had a dense flavor, changed in an instant.

The crunchy skin crumbled just like a sugar coating, and the juices that overflow when his teeth softly separate the meat. On top of that, when the aroma of the carbon got melted with the salty flavor, what Jo Minjoon felt was brightness rather than opposition. Could this be being dominated by the flavor? He smiled in a good mood.

Emily was biting her spoon. It was then. The carver approached and sliced a piece of sirloin smeared with garlic sauce on Jo Minjoon’s dish, and then he also asked Emily if she also wanted some. Emily nodded with a surprised expression but soon shook her head.

“I, I want to but I didn’t order buffet.”
“It’s service. You are pretty.”

At the word of being pretty, Emily smiled by reflexed and then glanced towards Martin. Martin nodded with an expression saying ‘I’m letting this specifically pass.’ Emily looked at the carver as if she had picked a piece of gold.

“Give me!”

The carver smiled and sliced her quite a thick piece of meat. If it was that thick you would wonder if there were still parts that weren’t cooked yet, but was it because pros are pros? Even the sliced part was well cooked.

Martin smiled faintly and looked at that sight. When a person that couldn’t eat properly started to eat well, the viewers will feel satisfaction just as if they were the ones that ate it.

‘She would really explode when she knows the truth that at first we were going to go with 10 reals instead of 50.’

Even so, it was fortunate that Emily’s temperament wasn’t like that. When other participants came and he made the same joke, how would they react…..

‘It’s the time for the English literature’s tongue to show itself.’

The carver that was passing by looked at Martin licking his lips with weird eyes and then disappeared.

< Hunger Trip (3) > End

Translator’s note: Thanks for reading!

PR note: This episode gave me horror film flashbacks.
If you like this novel, please support the author, translator, and editor~ ♥

Wow! I’m really poor if 50 R$ is considered little. It’s actually more than enough for a really good meal, or even two decent ones (although tourist spots can be pricier). Btw, the big mac comparison isn’t really accurate, they are just unreasonably expensive here.

With 50 reais you can eat like a pig in a decent restaurant (in a cheap one you could feed 5 people), but a serving of feijoada in a churrascaria that asks 110 reais for the male all-you-can-eat buffet (we call it rodizio) would be at least 30 reais even back in 2010, but you could also feed 2 people with a single serving (food is cheap and the standard serving is big, but we also waste a lot of it, unfortunately)
By the way, the currency is called Real, but the plural is ‘reais’.

This is also one of the major reasons, translators and their ilk should stop pointlessly converting currencies. Different places have subtly or even significantly different economies. For example, the same amount of money you buy a couple of bananas in the US could buy a whole bunch of same or similar quality bananas in Thailand. Knowing the equivalent purchasing power for your own country is as futile as those Japanese “isekai” web novels that arbitrarily convert fantasy medieval gold and silver coins to yen.

I will assert that not even half of english readers use US dollars in their daily lives and they won’t complain since they normally won’t even mind poor grammar and vocabulary that seemed to have been randomly and innappropriately filtered with a thesaurus. (e.g. “Refrain” is only synonymous to “stop” when you are stopping yourself. It is not a word used when stopping other people.) Ironically, this is even more prevalent in translations that have separate editors or proofreaders.